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“She’s absolutely wonderful, nothing is too much trouble.” My old friend Jonathan Dexter beamed with pleasure as he touched the arm of Bella Fazakerly, who was helping him climb the stairs to his flat. Jonathan was 95, and a recent fall had landed him in hospital with a broken leg. After he got better he…
Charles Dickens walked up to the bar, accompanied by some friends, who were all wearing their finest outfits: frock coats, tall ‘stovepipe’ hats, fancy waistcoats, while the women in his party were decked out in hooped skirts, crinoline and bonnets. I was sitting at a table towards the rear of the old pub with my…
“My business has gone bust, I’m going to lose everything I own, I might go to prison for fraud, and my wife has left me.” I told the little man I had just met. “Apart from that everything’s fine!” The small man who had come up to talk to me didn’t smile. Indeed, he didn’t…
When you think you’re going to die, it’s true, your past life does flash up in front of you. In my case it was just the few moments before the train crash: running along the platform and leaping on the train as it had started moving, and accidentally colliding with the blonde-haired young woman standing…
“Arise, Sir John.” After the tap on each shoulder by the Queen’s sword, the words she said evoked the chivalric romance of the days of the Knights of the Round Table, and indeed, I couldn’t quite believe it was all happening to me. True, I had led a long and busy life, done my best…
“You’ve done very well, Mary,” said George, who had produced a clipboard and pen, and was looking at me over his half-moon glasses with a patronising smile. He was every inch the city accountant: smart suit, neat silver hair and superficial charm. “You see, I’ve been meeting so many women via the dating site that…
I heard the shouting, went outside onto the landing of the block of flats, and saw the man with the gun. Then I saw him firing it. The other man fell down and didn’t get up. The Barnaby Estate is renowned for violence and criminality. I should know – I was born and brought up…
Someone once said that if you search for something your whole life, you’ll only find it when you stop looking. It certainly happened to me. I had never been to Cornwall. And I had also never had a clever, beautiful girlfriend before. That day I was so happy because finally my luck had changed: Caroline…
“Wow, Look at the expression in his eyes. Pure evil. It’s just like looking through the gates of hell!” My boss, consultant Robin Titchbairn, was frowning and shaking his head as his practised fingers slid shut the lids over the staring dead eyes of the man who had abducted, raped and killed five women. “You…
“There! Four crows on the wall. I told you!” “How on earth do you do it?” As we were driving along the country road we passed the four cawing crows on top of the red-brick wall, the exact same picture that had appeared in my mind’s eye a few seconds before we’d seen it. “I…